[12P.10] Results of the JPL Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) Program

The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program is the first
fully automated system for controlling a remote telescope,
acquiring wide-field digital images, and detecting Near-
Earth Objects (NEOs). Under an agreement between the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of
Technology and the U. S. Air Force, JPL is provided access
to a 1.0 m telescope located at the 3000 m summit of
Haleakala crater in Maui, Hawaii. By scripting 20 sec
exposures every 45 secs, this system can image up to 800 sq.
deg. thrice nightly to magnitude limit V=19.5, and can
detect asteroids with 90% efficiency to V=18. As of July
1998, NEAT has surveyed approx. 60,000 sq. deg., detected
more than 25,000 asteroid, and discovered 33 new NEAs, 2
comets and unique object 1996 PW. The current rate of NEO
detections, including incidental redetections, is about 1.5
per 1000 sq. deg., of which half are larger than 1 km in
diameter. NEAT leads the field in the detection of these
largest and most hazardous NEOs, and also in the detection
of Aten asteroids with orbital periods shorter than 1 year.
A proposal is currently under review to run the NEAT program
on three Air Force telescopes, 18 nights per month. Such a
system would cover the whole night sky 3 times per month to
V=20, and detect 90% of the NEOs larger than 1 km in 20
years. Simple improvements, such as operating the CCD at a
lower temperature and improving telescope tracking, would
lead to 90% detection in 10 years.

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